


Prestidigitation

by pepperfield



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Ghosts, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Requited Love, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Survivor Guilt, Unresolved Romantic Tension, dealing with unresolved feelings, discussed suicidal tendencies, mentions of the rest of the seven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8997811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperfield/pseuds/pepperfield
Summary: Faraday and Vasquez are bad at feelings, and even worse at talking about them. Being dead sure doesn't help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it might be fun to write an "everyone _except_ Faraday lives" AU, and by fun, I mean awful. I don't know why I did this. I like ghosts, I guess?
> 
> ~~I have zero Spanish skills, so please tell me if anything is incorrect! There are a few English sentences that are entirely italicized: in case the narrative doesn't make it clear, these are supposed to be in Spanish. Thank you for reading!~~
> 
>  
> 
> Edit: Now with actual Spanish courtesy of the lovely, wonderful [Xenomorphic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenomorphic/pseuds/Xenomorphic)!! Translations can be found in the end notes!

Miraculously, Vasquez doesn't almost die until a year out from Rose Creek.

To be honest, he was expecting this job to go sideways, though he’d been thinking it would be Goodnight, with his limp and still shaky nerves, winding up in the infirmary bed again. Or perhaps Red, still healing from the stray gunshot through the shoulder sustained just a month ago. But even with his run of good luck - owed in large part, he knows, to a certain gambler who’s much more invested in keeping him alive than he’ll ever let on - Vasquez was bound to find himself in a bad way eventually.

He’s just sort of embarrassed he didn’t notice the knife until it was jutting out of his shooting arm, his muscles spasming uselessly around his gun as he fell from his horse. He would have thought spending so much time around Billy Rocks would have taught him better. Most of the subsequent gunshots he managed to avoid, excepting a very painful one to the gut that knocked him off-balance yet again. This time off the mountain road and down into the dust.

Now he’s lying crumpled on the wrong side of a cliff edge, bleeding from at least three different parts of his body. The only slightly reassuring thing about the whole situation is that he’s sure he’s killed a good dozen bandits (caught the last bastard in the back with his own accursed knife) and bought enough time for Chisholm and Horne to secure the town. If he’s going to die like a fool folded ass-over-teakettle in the brambles with a handful of broken ribs and a busted head, at least it was on account of doing something vaguely heroic.

And at least he has his favorite fair-haired nuisance to keep him company.

“Unbelievable,” Faraday snarls, hovering angrily like a stormcloud as Vasquez struggles out of the crushed foliage that broke his fall. “You look like you lost a fight with a porcupine.”

“You’re one to talk, güero,” Vasquez mutters back, scrabbling to find a hand hold. He manages to drag himself a few yards out to a clearer patch of dirt. “This is nothing.”

“Sure looks like something from where I’m standing.”

“You are floating, not standing,” Vasquez reminds him, and Faraday scowls.

“Shut the hell up and let me see,” Faraday orders, waving his arms ineffectively until Vasquez obliges, ripping his shirt open to examine the wound. “Shit. You can bind up the arm, but you’re losing blood fast,” he says, pressing gently around the bleeding wound at Vasquez’s stomach. There’s a chill as Faraday’s hand phases right through him, and Vasquez shivers, then cringes at the ensuing pain. 

“I need to get back to the road,” he says. “To the road, then the settlement. It isn’t far.” He’s not sure if he’s talking to Faraday or himself. He’s starting to feel fuzzy, and he knows he’s got to get moving before he loses all sense of reality. If his horse hasn’t been scared off by the two escaping bandits, it’s only a short ride back to River Junction.

“You hit your head pretty hard on your way down,” Faraday says, trying to card through his hair and locate the source of his throbbing pain. For a moment, he feels almost solid, fingertips brushing coolly against Vasquez’s forehead before he fades again.

“So far, so good,” Vasquez mumbles back, wrapping a strip of his shirt tight around the wound on his arm. The one on his stomach he can’t do much about, besides clamp his hand down tight. His head is starting to swim, but he does manage to stagger to his feet, standing mostly stable.

Faraday looks almost more concerned than angry at this point. He’s spirited his deck of cards from his pocket, shuffling them them rapidly again and again as he floats slowly ahead of Vasquez, leading the way. “Wrong, amigo. You are miles away from good right now. Frankly, if you don’t mind my saying so, you look like shit. Mierda, if you will.” His voice is light, but his eyes are hard.

Vasquez tries not to laugh, lest he bleed out faster for it. So Faraday’s picked up a little more Spanish than expected. They’ve attempted lessons before - on the long stretches of road with nothing between the seven and civilization but cacti and rocks, and in the quiet hours when the campfire dies down and Vasquez is still too wired to sleep - Faraday admirably garbles up Spanish phrases with his flat accent, but nothing ever seems to stick.

“Am I not pretty enough for you, cariño?”

He begins the slow ascent back up to the mountain trail. Luckily, the way is steep but solid. The only obstacle between Vasquez and the road is himself.

“Not right now, you aren’t.” Faraday’s attention is on the sluggish flow of blood slipping through Vasquez’s fingers. He halts his hovering to settle onto the ground, choosing to mimic walking backwards instead, keeping his pace steady with Vasquez, who’s trying his best not to let his energy flag. “I might not look it, but I do have some standards. Now, I ain’t saying they’re not _low_ standards, but…”

“I suppose the world’s greatest lover can afford to be choosy.”

“Well, don’t go counting yourself out of the race yet. If you get yourself stitched up, maybe buy a new shirt and get a trim,” he gestures at Vasquez’s slightly overgrown beard with an incorporeal card, the nine of hearts, “I might consider it.”

“How generous of you, güero,” Vasquez says drily, and they exchange rueful smiles, knowing all too well that the time has passed for them to act on any attraction that might have existed between them.

If only he’d acted sooner on one of those nights in Rose Creek he had spent alone. There had been a moment - one golden memory that sticks in his mind above the others - where he stumbled into Faraday’s path that night they’d all gotten drunk on celebration, almost knocking him back down the stairs. Vasquez caught him by the waist to steady him, still quick with his reflexes even with the liquor running sweet and hot through him. There they stopped, the sound of everything around them dimming. 

“Up for some fun?” Faraday asked, brandishing his cards with a grin, eyes bright. In the seclusion of the stairwell, his irrepressible glow under the lamp light was visible only to Vasquez, who found himself teetering on the edge of giving in to the pull between them. He _wanted_ Faraday, wanted his smart mouth and clever hands, and to feel all of that brilliant, unrestrained energy directed only at himself. He burned with it, but the time wasn’t right. Not when they needed to prepare for what was looming before them in just a few days’ time. 

So he held up a hand, lightly pushing the deck away. Too much time spent together with loose inhibitions would only land him in trouble. “Not tonight, güerito.” 

Faraday didn’t take any offence, tucking his cards away with a shrug. But instead of leaving Vasquez to his own devices, he remained for another moment, rocking on his heels as he asked, “Then, up for something else?”

The question sounded ambiguous, but there was no mistaking what he meant, and for a split second, Vasquez almost gave in. He let the offer hang there in the air, fighting against himself and his desire to take Faraday to bed, before steeling his resolve. “When it’s all over, I will come find you,” he proposed instead, and Faraday nodded, sending him another one of his sly gambler’s smiles as he strode off to his own room.

Looking back, Vasquez should have taken the chance then.

If only that final day had gone a little bit differently.

But Faraday is dead, Vasquez is dying, and regrets are only for people who live purposeful lives. So they keep walking, Faraday chattering on inanely about a bar fight he’d been in once caused by a vanishing act gone awry. It’s a transparent attempt to keep Vasquez’s mind off of his pain and his exhaustion, but he doesn’t much care. He had always liked the other man’s voice anyway.

Three quarters of the way up the slope, Vasquez stumbles, pitching forward and almost falling flat on his face. He catches himself, but one hand is slick with blood, and the other suffers a jolt of agony when it meets the ground. Faraday stops immediately, phasing half through the dirt as he waits for Vasquez to pick himself back up. Vasquez’s breathing has grown ragged, and it takes him a minute, but he does manage to straighten up.

Faraday’s eyes are clouded and he visibly stops himself from trying to hold Vasquez steady. They both know it wouldn't help. “You had to go and get yourself all messed up, didn't you? You should've retreated after you took out the first wave.”

Sam had told him from the start that he didn't have to stop them all, just stem the tide to buy the rest of the team some valuable time, but it isn't in Vasquez’s nature to let some worm of a man slip out of his grasp while he still has some fighting spirit left in him. “Not a chance. Would you have let him go?”

“No, but I tend to have a few more tricks and a mite more luck on my side than the average Joe.”

“Except when it counts, eh?” Vasquez continues to clamber up the rest of the hill, but with what feels like much more exertion than before. Faraday falls silent. They don't discuss his death often, but the specter of it is almost as present as Faraday himself. The guilt, the wasted chances, the endless questions and what-ifs.

“That was an exception. Special case,” Faraday mutters, hands stuck deep in his pockets as he slouches forward alongside Vasquez.

“Teddy says they buried the parts of you they could find. _Parts_.” With the wound to his arm, Vasquez hadn't been able-bodied enough at the time to help with the burials. Half of him is glad he didn't have to see Faraday’s remains splattered across the scorched field. The other half just feels even guiltier with the knowledge that his corpse should have been out there too. He should've found another way, something better than Faraday and Chisholm’s half-baked plan to take out the damned Gatling gun.

“Now is not the time to be discussing my gloriously heroic demise, Vas. Now is the time to be preventing yours. C’mon, up we go.”

Faraday leads him patiently up the rest of the way, hovering close each time Vasquez needs to stop and catch his breath, until finally, finally they reach the road, still littered with the outlaws he felled earlier. Unfortunately, there's not a horse to be seen for a mile around. His own must have run off when he was shot.

“Well, fuck. Knew you shoulda ridden Wild Jack; we wouldn't be having this problem.”

Vasquez stumbles slowly toward the bend in the road, trying to gauge how long it would take him to reach the town on foot. From here, he can see where the road meets the plain. It’s only about two and a half miles back to town. He can do this.

“Your horse dislikes me immensely. I will walk,” he decides, shambling along for several yards before he slips again as his vision goes black. When he opens his eyes, he finds that he’s sitting on his knees. He blinks incoherently at the path and starts to stand, bracing himself against the side of the mountain. Faraday appears from nowhere right in front of his face, almost shocking him into falling flat on his behind again.

“Jesus, you look bad, Vasquez. Why don’t we table this walking business for now?” Faraday looks uncharacteristically nervous, stress lines creasing the corners of his eyes. Vasquez wants to reach out and clap him on the back, tell him there’s nothing to worry about, but a wave of wooziness washes over him, and it takes most of his concentration to remain standing.

“You’re right. Walking is not a good idea.” Vasquez agrees genially and lowers himself heavily back to the dirt. His pain in his skull has dulled into something more muffled. In fact, he’s more tired than anything right now. He needs to get back before bleeding out, but he’s not sure if he’ll have the energy. “I should roll,” he mumbles to himself, contemplating the downward path stretching out before him.

“No, you aren’t gonna fucking _roll_ down the goddamned mountain, you lunatic!” Faraday sounds oddly distant, though Vasquez suspects he’s being yelled at. Normally he’d start snapping back, but he’d rather sleep now, he thinks. Faraday should sleep too. They can share the bed; Vasquez can be gentleman enough to keep his hands to himself.

He lets his eyes flutter closed, just to block out the shimmering of the scenery for a moment, but a sudden rush of cold slices right through his face. Squinting, he finds that Faraday is doing the equivalent of ghost-slapping him, though his hand keeps passing through Vasquez’s cheek.

“ _Do not sleep_ , you asshole. Shit,” Faraday curses, looking between the road and Vasquez, clearly trying to formulate a plan. Vasquez feels guilty about not contributing much to the conversation, but his last suggestion had been immediately shot down, so he keeps quiet and tries to count the droplets of blood escaping from between his fingers. They pearl up on the leg of his pants before soaking through, blots of red dotting him all over.

Faraday continues talking, mostly to himself at this point. “If I leave you here, you’ll just keel over and die, but you can’t make it back like this. We need help. Christ.” He removes his hat, scruffing up his hair wildly in frustration. Vasquez wonders hazily if it’s as soft as it looks. There’s a lot he wonders about Faraday when the nights grow long and the rest of the world is asleep.

Where he spends the hours between midnight and dawn. How long he’s going to stick around the remaining members of the seven until he loses interest in being their spectral look-out. What it is exactly that keeps his restless spirit still tethered to the living world. Whether he ever kisses his lovers soft and sweet, and what he would look like half-awake in Vasquez’s bed under the sleepy light of sunrise. If he ever looks at anybody else the way he looks at Vasquez when he doesn't think anyone is paying attention - his usual firecracker gaze blurred into something pensive, something that might be described as longing.

Mostly he wonders if they could have had something, the two of them. Something real and solid and tangible, but he’ll never know. Not when they can’t even touch, and Faraday is about as concrete as the wind.

“Alright,” Faraday proclaims, brushing his fingertips through Vasquez’s temple again to catch his attention. It’s almost a tender gesture, but for the extremely aggravated expression on the spirit’s face. “You stay here and under no circumstances are you allowed to fall asleep. I reckon I can reach River Junction in under half an hour. I’ll grab one of ‘em and the doc to come get you, okay?”

The plan sounds good in theory, but Vasquez isn’t as optimistic as his companion. “You fly much slower than you think.”

“Well, it’s not like there’s any other fuckin’ choice, is there?” Faraday barks, throwing up his hands. “I have saved your sorry ass too many times to let you die on a molehill because you let some idiot knock you into a ditch with a penknife and a peashooter.” It is true that with Faraday watching his back, he’s avoided plenty of life-threatening injuries before now. Some he could never have avoided without help, and some others were just careless mistakes that could have ended much more poorly. But their good luck couldn’t have lasted forever.

“It isn’t a very noble death, is it?” Vasquez laughs, but Faraday doesn’t find it as entertaining as he does. 

“No, and it’ll make for a terrible story, so don’t you go and kick the bucket while I’m gone,” he warns. He looks awfully frazzled right now, much more than Vasquez is used to or comfortable with, so he shakes his head, refusing to comply.

“Don’t go. Stay here with me,” he says, and it’s not until he says it aloud that he realizes why he feels so at ease. He’s too exhausted to keep his hand pressed to his wound, and his vision is beginning to flicker again. Everything hurts still, but even more so, everything feels simple. Like all his problems would be solved if he just let go.

Vasquez isn’t a quitter by any means, but there’s an odd, unexpected peace in him that he can’t seem to shake off.

He’s going to die here.

Faraday hasn’t yet come to the same conclusion. With a righteous fury, he spits, “No, you damned fool, I’ve got to go-”

“ _Querido_ ,” Vasquez hums out, coughing on the last vowel. There’s blood in his throat, blood on his lips. “Está bien. Wait here with me. I would like the company, even if it is yours.” He pats the patch of ground next to himself, even though Faraday can’t really sit. Blankly, he wonders if he’ll become a ghost as well. That might not be so bad. Faraday would not have to be alone anymore.

Faraday looks torn, and Vasquez does feel sorry for the pain he’s causing him, but there’s not much either of them can do at this point. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up. No. Hold on now, Vasquez, keep your eyes open.”

“Can’t.”

“You prick, don’t you dare die on me. I’m gonna pass on to the great beyond just to spite you if you do.” Faraday tries to smack him awake again, but Vasquez’s consciousness is still slipping. His mind does catch on that threat though, and it makes him curious.

“¿Qué te ha retenido aquí? ¿Por qué no has avanzado?” Vasquez asks. He thinks he’s speaking Spanish, but who knows at this point. His eyes close again.

“Fuck, how much more blood can you lose?” There's a soothing coolness against his limp hand that builds into a flexible pressure shoring up against his stomach wound. “Come on, come on, I’ve got you.” It almost feels like there's another hand pushing against his own.

Vasquez forces his eyes open one more time, drinking in the sight of Faraday, ethereal and starkly, vividly alive, even despite the translucence of his skin and his airy presence. After everything, Vasquez still aches with how much he wants him. It's too late to mourn lost chances, but before he goes, he wants to confess. Even if Faraday can't understand.

“Esa noche. En Rose Creek, cuando preguntaste. Debí haber dicho sí."

Through his slitted eyes he can see Faraday fall still before letting out a shaky breath. The pressure of those cold hands at his abdomen increases, and he can barely make out Faraday’s mouth forming words in halting Spanish. “Ent- entonces la próxima vez, preguntaré de nuevo, y tú dirás sí.”

Vasquez is fading fast, but those words, flat and uncertain and perfect, startle one last laugh out of him. “Oh, güerito, siempre encuentras cómo sorprenderme."

He reaches out, and presses his hand against Faraday’s cheek - solid under his touch - for just a second, before letting his eyes finally close again. He's tired.

At the edges of his consciousness, before he drifts, Faraday’s voice floats in from far, far away.

“Don't you let go, you bastard. Don't you dare fucking die. Look- Vasquez, there’s someone headed our way. I see them riding up, they're not far- I need you to wake up, you stubborn son of a- do you hear me? Wake the hell up.

“Vasquez. Please. You still haven't carried through on your promise. When it's all over, remember?”

Vasquez wants to answer, he really does, but he can't hold on any longer. The last thing he remembers is the peculiar sensation of being held tight and surrounded by cold. It almost feels like he's being carried away by the wind.

\--

The first thing Vasquez sees upon returning to the waking world is Billy Rocks staring down impassively at him with a rather ridiculous amount of bandages wrapped around one side of his head, covering up his left eye. They look at one another in silence while Vasquez tries to summon up enough saliva to be able to talk again. His tongue and palate are desert dry and he hurts all over.

“Your eye?” he finally croaks out. Billy has since returned to his chair, flipping through a yellowed paperback with disinterest.

“Is fine. Goody overdid it,” Billy says, motioning at his bandages.

“Ah. The town?”

“Also fine.”

Vasquez nods numbly. He thought as much, but it’s reassuring to hear. “Excelente. And the others?" 

Billy makes a slight noise, expressing just a modicum of amusement as he tosses his book away. “Much better off than you are.”

“Good to know.”

He falls silent again, turning his stiff neck enough to be able to watch Billy sharpening a knife on a block he's conjured from somewhere. The room is bright and unfamiliar, and the sheets on his bed are clean. It doesn't feel right somehow. Knowing it's an idiotic question doesn't stop him from asking, “I'm not dead, am I?”

Billy looks like he might actually laugh, which Vasquez considers a victory. “Do you feel dead?” he asks drily.

No, he feels all too alive in all the worst ways. “Unfortunately, no.”

“The others are giving you space, but the doctor is in the other room,” Billy says, offering his assistance in his own staid way, and Vasquez nods. 

Billy slips from the room, and the doctor returns alone to check on Vasquez. He's an older, jovial man, who explains Vasquez’s situation with a lot of gesticulating. In summary, he’s been unconscious for two days, and he’ll be bedridden for quite a few more. He’d been in quite awful shape when Red and Horne dragged his miserable body back into River Junction, but they’d managed to get him to pull through, though it had been a close fight for a time.

The doctor checks him over and gets him a much needed cup of water before leaving with a promise to come see him again in the afternoon. A stocky, no-nonsense nurse replaces him. She helps Vasquez to the bathroom and changes his dressings with a few stern warnings not to exert himself. She too leaves after telling him she'll send one of his friends over with lunch. Vasquez remains stranded on his bed, now propped up against the headboard with nothing to do but ponder his existence and stare out the window. Outside, life is in full bloom. Families pass by: children and couples and grandparents, and all of them cheerful and no longer afraid to walk the streets of their own town. Some of them even wave to him.

Down the street a ways, he spots Goodnight and Sam relaxing on the porch of the inn, which makes him wonder where the rest of them have got to. He'll have to thank Jack and Red once he gets a chance to see them. Meanwhile, he plots his escape from the sick house. He certainly doesn't have the patience to remain in here for another week.

While he's trying to figure out which of the passing nurses might be the easiest to sway, Billy reappears in the open doorway to his little room, but he looks considerably more annoyed than before.

“I'm not dealing with this anymore. Take him,” is what he says before stalking away. Vasquez doesn't even get the chance to ask what he's on about before Faraday floats into his room, stormy and glowering. None of the nurses or patients blink an eye at the sight of him; they've already grown accustomed to his presence. In fact, the only person who’s surprised at all is Vasquez, and that's only because Faraday manages to slam the door to the room closed by waving his arm through it.

“That's a new trick,” Vasquez comments mildly as his angry ghost approaches. Faraday does the equivalent of flinging himself onto Vasquez’s bed and settles for hovering over his legs.

“You know me. Master of prestidigitation and all that,” he grumbles out sourly. 

“I would say it is slightly more impressive than your usual sleight of hand,” Vasquez replies, but the other man doesn’t seem up for their usual banter.

Faraday sends him a scathing glare. “I can't believe you tried to fucking die on me out there.” 

Scratching at the bandage on his arm, Vasquez offers an apologetic shrug. He understands why Faraday is unhappy with him. “Lo siento, cariño. I’m sorry for worrying you.” He says his words contritely, with a small smile, but it only riles Faraday up more.

“Quit it with the pet names; I’m pissed at you.” He tosses his hat aside in anger and it flies away to phase incorporeally through the floor. “You gave up on me back there. You gave up on all of us - you’re lucky I can’t deck you in the face for your stupidity, you ass.”

Vasquez frowns. This hostility seems a little unfair. “What would you have me do? I could not stay conscious-”

“That’s not what I’m talkin’ about.” Faraday is scowling, but looks disinclined to explain any further, and on an ordinary day Vasquez might extend his patience, but his head hurts, his arm stings, and his insides feel like they’ve barely been stitched back together. He isn’t gracious enough to entertain Faraday’s over-theatrics right now.

In a rush of exasperation, he barks, “Then you will have to explain, because I don’t know in what other imaginary way I have slighted you-”

“I want you to stop trying to fucking martyr yourself every time we take a new job! You think I haven’t noticed? We’ve been together a year now, Vasquez, and I can tell when you’re getting careless, and I can certainly tell when you’ve stopped giving a fuck about your own self-preservation! Some days I feel like you’re _trying_ to find someone who can finally send a bullet through your skull and put you out of your fucking misery!”

For a second, Faraday’s form solidifies long enough to shove Vasquez by the shoulders back against the headboard. Not hard, but it’s enough to translate the fury in his voice before he spins and storms over to the edge of the bed where he huddles like a wounded animal, putting as much space between them as possible.

Vasquez stays still, slowly working through his shock. It isn’t often that Faraday’s willing to be so frank about his emotions without being flippant, and from the sounds of it, this is something he’s wanted to confront Vasquez about for a while now. But Vasquez doesn’t know what to tell him.

Perhaps he gets a bit irresponsible with his own life, but he’s always known that he’s been living on borrowed time. It’s going to slip away from him eventually.

“It...it’s not like that,” he says, but his conviction is weak, and Faraday continues to chew him out.

“It’s not? Because from everything I’ve seen, it sure looks like you’re one step away from taking a suicide charge the next chance you get. Am I gonna have to stop you from throwing yourself in front of a train next? Why can’t you stop and consider that maybe your life is more important than you think it is?”

Faraday can’t stop his torrent of rage, and Vasquez knows he’s just concerned, like any good friend would be. But between the suddenly very real weight of Faraday resting on the mattress, the shift in the air as he gestures angrily, and the full color in his eyes and his skin, Vasquez is stricken again by how _alive_ he still feels.

And it isn’t fair, because no matter how much Vasquez wants to believe what his senses are telling him, he knows it can’t be true. Faraday is still dead, and Vasquez has still failed him.

So he withstands the diatribe as long as he can, letting Faraday berate him with all this concern that he doesn’t deserve, until he can’t carry it in him anymore, and he snaps.

“Why don’t you tell me, Faraday? Because between the two of us, _I_ am not the one they found scattered in burnt pieces half a mile along that godforsaken field. I’m not the one who got shot half a dozen times on a suicide run against a gatling gun. You want to talk about me throwing my life away? Why don’t we start with you first?”

He’s breathing too hard, he knows. His lungs burn, and his stomach feels like it’s going to churn up and out past his stitches, but worst of all is the guilt, rising up his throat and threatening to spill over like bile. He wants to retch, he wants to scratch it out of himself - anything to make the shame easier to bear. But it seeps back into his veins, where it belongs. He’ll have to live with it until the day his own fate finally catches up to him.

Faraday, eyes wide and bewildered, almost softens as he stares Vasquez down. His weight on the bed dissipates, leaving him floating once again, and his flesh loses its glow, fading back to translucency. “That’s what this is all about? You’re still hung up on me dying?” he asks, looking totally thrown. On him, the expression is almost endearing, but Vasquez can’t enjoy it. Faraday doesn’t _understand_.

“Hung up on- _idiota_ , every time I look at you, I remember. How could I forget? You died, and I did _nothing_.”

He should have grabbed a horse and followed Faraday out there, instead staying holed up in the town like a coward. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t ride; he’d only had a few injuries. At the very least, he could’ve acted as a distraction, or helped to provide cover.

Shaking his head, Faraday inches closer. His ire has been replaced by a baffled sort of pity. “Shit, Vas, what’re you blaming yourself for? Someone needed to get rid of the gatling gun, or we’d’ve been fucked. I volunteered. That’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“I should have stopped you, is what I should have done. I should have caught up to you and Chisholm. Should’ve come up with a plan less stupid than your suicide mission. And if nothing else, I should have died out there in the field with you.”

“Don’t say that,” Faraday scolds, his eyes flashing.

“Why not? I stood by and let you get yourself killed.”

“And what, you think it would have been better for us to get both of our dumb asses blown to bits instead? Is this why you’ve been itchin’ to get yourself murdered? As some sort of fucked up way of repenting for something that’s not even your fault?”

Faraday has crawled close enough that he’s more or less straddling Vasquez’s lap, though he remains intangible. There’s a hint of grief in his voice, more for Vasquez’s sake than his own.

“But how else can I atone, güero?” Vasquez asks him unhappily, wishing he could hear the sound of Faraday’s heartbeat or his breath. But wishing can’t change reality.

“There isn’t anything that you need to atone for. Look at me. I made my choice, and nothing you could have done will change that. I’m dead, and fuck, that’s just how the cards fell, I guess,” Faraday says ruefully. He laughs briefly, humorless and dry, and Vasquez feels both fond and terribly sad.

Quietly, Faraday continues, eyes fixed on Vasquez’s. “But you’re still alive, and I would die again to keep you that way, you contrary old bastard. I need you alive, Vasquez. As does the rest of the team, and all those little podunk towns out there that still need rescuing. So can you please, _please_ let go of this pointless death wish? It’s already hard enough for me to watch out for you all without you actively workin’ against me.”

It’s such a rarity for him to sound so sincere that Vasquez wants to agree, but the guilt surges in him again, and he has to take a moment to consider his choices. He isn’t sure he’ll ever really be able to let go of Rose Creek, but neither does he think his death will serve any purpose. Not for himself, or any of the seven.

Finally, he asks, “¿Qué debería hacer?”

It takes a fraction of a minute, but Faraday summons up a response in mostly correct Spanish. “Debes vivir, por nosotros dos.” Hurriedly, he follows it up with a hasty, “Or I’ll kick your ass down another mountain,” in English.

Vasquez laughs at that, and fuck if it doesn’t hurt. But it’s worth it for the look of relief on Faraday’s face. “Can you actually do that?” he asks, watching in fascination as Faraday scrunches his mouth, concentrating on his hand. It seems to become more real than the rest of him.

“You tell me.” He rests his hand against Vasquez’s face, and it’s a startlingly, solidly human touch.

“I can feel you,” Vasquez says wonderingly, leaning into his hand. Faraday’s skin is still abnormally cold, but he doesn’t care in the least.

Faraday shrugs, letting himself dissolve again. “I told you, prestidigitation. Smoke and mirrors, all of it.”

“It certainly feels real enough to me.”

“I can pull it off if I want it enough. Not for long, but I’ve got all the time in the world to practice. I’ve already gotten real good at closing doors. It’s driving Billy up the wall.” He grins sharply, a sudden burst of radiance, and Vasquez’s heart aches with how much he loves him. If for no other reason, he’ll have to keep himself alive to see that smile again.

Solemnly, he straightens up his posture, and promises, “I’ll be better, querido. But I’ll still need you to watch my back.”

“Alright, I’ll take that deal.”

“Ah, and I need you to tell me just when exactly you learned so much Spanish.” He’s honestly surprised Faraday managed to keep it hidden for so long.

“I listen when you talk, that’s all,” Faraday says, but Vasquez eyes him suspiciously. All he gets in response is a raised eyebrow. “Any other conditions?”

“No, not on my end. However,” Vasquez pauses, thinking back to the feverish conversation they’d held while he was about to pass out in the dirt. Maybe their chance hasn’t been missed yet. “I think you have a question for me.”

Faraday squints in confusion before the realization hits him. His eyes drop down to the bed, where he’s still practically sitting on top of Vasquez’s legs, and then he shrugs again, smirking.

“Seems a little strange to be asking this when I’m already on top of you, but. When this is all over,” he waves up and down Vasquez’s battered but healing body, “would you be up for something fun?”

“You might have to wait a little longer for ‘something fun’,” Vasquez tells him, but Faraday only quirks another smile.

“Something else, then,” he offers, giving Vasquez that secret, longing look that’s meant for him alone.

This time, Vasquez says yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Translation Notes:
> 
>  **¿Qué te ha retenido aquí? ¿Por qué no has avanzado?** - > What's been keeping you here? Why haven't you moved on?
> 
>  **Esa noche. En Rose Creek, cuando preguntaste. Debí haber dicho sí.** - > That night. In Rose Creek, when you asked. I should have said yes. 
> 
> **Ent- entonces la próxima vez, preguntaré de nuevo, y tú dirás sí.** - > Then- then next time, I will ask again, and you will say yes.
> 
>  **Oh, güerito, siempre encuentras cómo sorprenderme.** - > Oh, güerito, you always have a way of surprising me.
> 
>  **¿Qué debería hacer?** - > What should I do?
> 
>  **Debes vivir, por nosotros dos.** - > You should live, for the both of us.


End file.
